Smallbore Silhouette
What is Smallbore Silhouette?
It’s a game of honing your skills at shooting little metal animals at different distances off hand. It looks pretty easy, but you may be surprised!
Smallbore Silhouette events at OSC are open to the public and follow the NRA rules of Metallic Silhouette for rimfire rifles. A match consists of 40 rounds shot at individual steel targets that are set at four different distances. The metallic silhouettes for smallbore are 1/5 scale, with chickens placed at 40 yards, pigs at 60 yards, turkeys at 77 yards, and rams at 100 yards.
Course of Fire
Each shooter picks a position on the shooting line. At OSC there are three positions for each animal (chicken 1, 2, and 3; pig 1, 2, and 3; etc.) The number of the position will determine where the shooter will shoot for each animal.
At each position, the shooter will shoot at two banks of five animals (total of 10 animals per position). As every match can be different for each club, the match director will explain the rules for safety and handling of firearms at OSC at the beginning of the match.
When the match director announces “Ready,” a timer is set for 2:45 minutes. At this time, shooters may load their firearm with a magazine of no more than 5 bullets, shoulder the rifle, and find the first target in the scope. The first target is always the left-most target.
At minute 2:30 the match director will announce “Fire.” The shooter will have the remaining time to fire one shot at each animal on the first bank, shooting at the five animals in order from left to right. At the end of the 2:30 minutes, the match director will announce “Cease Fire” and will then ask if there are any alibis. Following a thirty second rest period, the same is done with the second bank.
After both banks, shooters will make their firearms safe and step back from the shooting line. The match director will then instruct everyone to walk downrange to reset the animals. Once everyone is behind the firing line again, all shooters will move to the next position and follow the same course of fire for all four animals. Chicken 2 will move to Pig 2; Ram 3 will move to Chicken 3; Pig 1 will move to Turkey 1; etc.
Scoring is one point for each animal that falls. Only the animals that are being shot at and fall will count.
Some Tips
For your equipment, it is recommended that you use a rifle with a scope that has the following capabilities:
- Adjustable parallax from 40-100 yards
- Hand-adjusted elevation turrets
- 9x or greater is highly recommended
Having an adjustable scope will make shooting much more enjoyable and will allow you to increase your skill level more quickly. Settings will very likely change for each animal, so sighting in before the match will be necessary to determine the settings for each animal distance.
For ammunition, standard velocity is recommended. No hypersonic ammunition is allowed for shooting at the steel animals. At least 75 rounds are recommended for the first match (40 for the match; additional for initial sighting in).
Eye and ear protection is required at all matches hosted by OSC.
Resources
